Kansas Treasurer Ron Estes is the Republican nominee in Tuesday’s 4th District special election. (Courtesy Kansas for Estes Facebook page)

It’s not often that a sitting Republican president, vice president, a former presidential candidate and senator and the speaker of the House make an effort days before a special election to hold what’s supposed to be a safe GOP seat.

“Today, the eyes of the whole country are on Kansas,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said at a Monday rally for state Treasurer Ron Estes, the GOP nominee in the 4th District.

Money is pouring into the suburbs north of Atlanta, the site of the first competitive congressional election of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Georgia’s 6th District, left vacant by the confirmation of Tom Price as Health and Human Services Secretary, is one of five special elections taking place across the country this spring, but the only one which offers much of a chance of a partisan flip.

Kansas Treasurer Ron Estes is likely the next congressman from the 4th District. (Courtesy Kansas for Estes Facebook page)

Ahead of the first special election of Donald Trump’s presidency, a small group of Kansas Republicans has effectively handpicked an establishment-backed candidate as the next congressman from the Wichita-based 4th District.

At a special nominating convention Thursday night, 126 district committeeman elected state Treasurer Ron Estes to be the GOP nominee for the open seat, which was vacated by Mike Pompeo after his confirmation as CIA director. Estes received 66 votes on the final ballot.

Mike Pompeo’s departure from Congress for a new job as CIA director gives Alan Cobb, a Trump campaign official, a shot at the 4th District seat in Kansas. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

During the campaign, there probably weren’t enough full-throated Donald Trump supporters on Capitol Hill to fill a minivan. But two Trump campaign aides could get elected in House special elections later this year, while another adviser may challenge a Republican senator in a primary next year.

Their candidacies will test the popularity and allure of Trump at the local level (since each of them would start their races as underdogs against establishment candidates) and indicate how interested the new president is in interjecting himself into local fights.